Thank You to all that responded! I wish I had a website where I could post pictures, guess that is the next item to deal with!
I managed to find some small driving lights that (with a little time and patience) will "flush-up" into the nose of the pants and actually take on the original curvature with almost no body work. About the only thing that can be noticed is that there is a "glass eye" sticking out at the very tip of the pants. They are 55 watt halogen, fully enclosed in a well done aluminum housing, about 3" deep. If memory serves, I found them at Autozone for under $30. After making the initial "chop the nose off" on each pant, the finishing fit was easily accomplished with a Dremel fitted with a sanding drum. The end result is that it is very difficult to see where the wheel pant ends and the driving light housing begins. I did the initial body work using a strip of glass cloth and resin on the inside, and then just a dab of Bondo on the outside before painting. We did some preliminary testing and discovered that they would light up a neighbor's picket fence (about 1/8 mile away) very nicely in total darkness. Closer to home, they turn night into day when aimed at our house from about 300 feet away. So I figured they might be worth the time to body into the pants and see how it goes. The lights are mounted 90 degrees from their design. This results in a rather high vertical light pattern, and a rather narrow horizontal pattern. (It also results in the lights nearly falling into place inside the pants.) Looking at the neighbor's fence, the pattern looks to be about 150' wide at 1/8 mile. The vertical pattern easily lights everything from directly below the wheels to the tip of that tree at the end of the runway. Thus far it looks like a perfect pattern for aviation purposes. The one item that is still up in the air (no pun intended) is where to align the convergence of the two lights. I think I will try to have them converge at about 1/4 mile for starters. A special thanks to Edward and to Jose for their thoughts and comments. I considered the wings, and even the front cowling, but couldn't bring myself to bore holes (or cut huge slots) into perfection. I knew that if I cut a big hole into the cowling, it would mean weeks and weeks of body work to get things looking good again --- Same for the wings! Structurally, I changed my plans from a simple 12" long 2-bolt bracket to a 12" long 4-bolt bracket for each pant --- 4 bolts on the pant itself, and fastened to the gear at all 4-bolts. . Inside the pant is a full-height vertical bracket to which the light is bolted. The lights weigh only a few ounces, but making heftier brackets at this stage was much cheaper than buying a new tire or breaking an airplane because something came loose. I used 7075, but might have to back-off to 6061 if it proves to be too brittle. I fully expect the lights in the pants to be a maintenance "issue", but it is a checklist item that I am willing to deal with. Electrically, this is 110 watts at 12 volts = 9+ amps. I felt this was just a bit too much to entrust to a 10 amp. rocker switch, so a 30 amp. relay was used. This also had the side benefit of keeping heavy electrical loads away from the panel (and compass)... The wiring to each light is teflon 12 gauge, twisted, and terminated with standard crimp spade type connectors. I'll try to find a way to post some pictures. Thanks to everyone that offered thoughts and comments. Dave.
